You’ve seen it before. Products at your grocery store are marked with a maple leaf to indicate that the product comes from a Canadian source. Since March 2025 when the US started slapping Canada with exorbitant tariffs, grocery stores have led the campaign to provide Canadian shoppers with the option to buy more things Canadian. But how accurate is it? More than once, major stores have been caught labeling grapes grown in Guatemala or oranges grown in Florida with a maple leaf. What’s clearly printed on the bag or the item as an imported product is misrepresented by the maple leaf as of a Canadian origin. Of course, the inconsistency is so stark that shoppers have whipped out cell phone cameras and posted the pictures online, or sent it to news agencies. A class action law suit against offending grocers is now being tested before the courts, and the government is working on legislation that exacts fines of up to $15,000 per incident of mislabeling. In the midst of all the furor, a new term has emerged. It’s called “maple washing”. And it’s trending.
As I read the reaction of the public, the politicians and the lawyers crowded around the complaints against maple washing, I am fascinated by the deep sense of offence that is expressed. The Bible has a term for that. It’s called “hypocrisy”. To be clear, hypocrisy is when a person’s behaviour doesn’t match what that person says, or in this case, if your maple leaf designation doesn’t match where your product is really from. Jesus was clear in His stand against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees of His day (read Matthew 23:13-29) and in His letter to the church at Sardis, He writes, “I know your works. You have a reputation [or a name] that you are alive, but you are dead” (Revelation 3:1). Imagine the maple washing that Jesus is pointing out. Your label says you are alive but your spiritual life says otherwise. The problem of such mislabeling is that those who are fooled by it return angry: angry with the church, angry with Christians, angry with God. As with maple washing, having a name of being a Christian but living otherwise may seem harmless at the outset, but as that class action law suit on maple washing states, it is a type of mislabeling that preys on the vulnerable and confuses the earnest. I can see the threat of a class action lawsuit, and if not that impending $15,000 fine having an impact on grocery stores cleaning up their act. I wonder if we would see an end to living a dead life, but having a name that we are living. I certainly hope so. In the end, it is our solemn opportunity to live lives that are authentic and alive in Christ. It is our call to do so. The vulnerable and the earnest depend on it.
Just Church
At Just Church, our all is to live authentic Christian lives in an inauthentic age. “The vision of Just Church is to establish a church in just the way Christ called the church to be – true to His Word, loving Him, loving one another, and loving the lost.”
